


Interlude

by CommonNonsense



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5703721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommonNonsense/pseuds/CommonNonsense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock's plane turns around, only John gets on to see him, while Mary and Mycroft wait below. Left alone after Sherlock's almost-exile, they talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

The plane rattles to a stop on the tarmac, jolting Sherlock out of his mind palace. He groans and drops his head back on the seat. “No, no,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to find the threads of his thoughts to lead him back in. He nearly had it, he was so close—the case of Emelia Ricoletti’s death was at his fingertips. He just needed one more minute . . . 

The flight attendant says something that Sherlock doesn’t register, too bleary and angry. Likewise, the captain—a spitting image of Lady Carmichael, almost enough to make Sherlock pause—comes by to express her hopes that the flight was satisfactory. He dismisses the thought and settles back, ready to dive back into his mind palace and solve the case. The sooner he knows, the sooner he can apply it to Moriarty and end the game he thought he finished a year ago. 

His head spins and he thumps it back against his seat. The cocktail of drugs in his system will start to take their toll soon. He needs to go back before they wear off. The cocaine makes his mind sharp, his thoughts speed along at an unmatched pace, but much longer and it and everything else will turn on him. He’ll be useless after that, and Moriarty—or whoever this is—will have all the more time to get ahead. 

Outside, he can hear the rattle of the boarding stairs as they’re wheeled back up to the plane. The door to the cabin opens with a hiss of air, and Sherlock prepares himself for Mycroft’s insufferable lecturing and the team of John’s and Mary’s concern. However, only John ducks through the door. Sherlock can’t help the wave of relief. 

Just five minutes ago, he was meant never to see this man again. 

The relief is quickly replaced with agitation.

“Sherlock?” John says as he hurries down the aisle. “Sherlock, are you—“

“I almost had it!” Sherlock interrupts in frustration. He breathes heavily, trying toremember the details even as John sits across from him.

“Had what?”

“I need to go back!”

John laughs, a bit nervously. “Go back where? You didn’t get very far.”

“Ricoletti and his abominable wife! Don’t you understand?”

John shakes his head slowly. Sherlock sighs and grips the armrest on his seat. “It was a case, a famous one from a hundred years ago, lodged in my hard drive. She seemed to be dead but then she came back.”

John leans forward in his seat. “What, like Moriarty?”

“She shot herself in the head, exactly like Moriarty,” Sherlock says impatiently. He unclips his seatbelt and moves to stand, then pauses and looks around the cabin. “Where are the others?”

“Mary and Mycroft? They’re down there.” John gestures vaguely toward the outside. “Mycroft’s talking with MI5 and trying to sort out what’s happening. He wants all of us to stay put for a few minutes, including you.”

“Then why are you up here?”

“Are you kidding?”

Sherlock has no answer for that, so he slouches back in his seat. He scrubs his hands over his face. “I need to find out what happened to Emelia Ricoletti. I almost solved it. I was there, I was so close—”

“Sherlock, just give it a minute. We’ll get this sorted just as soon as we can go.”

“I could sort it out now if you would stop yapping!” Sherlock snaps. John, looking stung, sits back in his seat and folds his hands in his lap. He looks out the window, lips pressed into a thin line. Sherlock leans back and closes his eyes, trying to lose himself in the Victorian setting of his palace again with the precious few minutes he has.

“You weren’t going to come back, were you.”

Sherlock’s eyes snap open and he looks at John. John’s gaze is still fixated out the window at the empty expanse of tarmac.

“I said six months.”

“I’m not stupid, Sherlock. You said you almost died the last time you went to Serbia, and that was before you killed a man in front of half the British government.” John licks his lips, shifts in his seat. “You didn’t exactly sound like you were just coming back in a few months, either.”

Sherlock finds he has no response. He avoids John’s gaze, resting the knuckles of his hand over his mouth as if in thought.

John sighs shortly. There’s a world of frustration and distress in that one exhale. “You were going to let me believe you were just gone for a bit and then never come back. Sherlock, I’ve already nearly lost you twice, and then it was going to happen again, and you weren’t even going to tell me?”

“I thought it would be for the best,” Sherlock replies.  

“The best—how?” John exclaims, throwing up his hands. “How was that for the best, Sherlock? Were you going to come back in another two years and tell me that one was fake, too?”

Sherlock shuts his eyes against the rush of emotion welling up in his chest. Without the distraction of the Victorian case, despair presses against his ribs and clogs his throat. It had been bad enough accepting that he would never see John again before his death, but somehow, being forced to confront the mere idea of it now, even though it won’t happen, is worse. 

John is back on his feet again, pacing in the three-foot space between the window and the aisle. Sherlock imagines the way John will have clenched his fists, his shoulders stiff as though he is ready to lash out and punch something. Maybe Sherlock. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

“Sherlock—”John starts, but his voice cracks and he has to stop. He gathers himself and tries again. “Sherlock, I’ve already done this once. Living, thinking you’re dead. That was bad enough.” Sherlock dares to glance up at John, and John looks back. John’s trying and failing to hide his emotions, his eyes bracketed with an agony that makes Sherlock’s breath catch. 

John swallows and continues, his voice wavering but determined. “But if it turned out you were dead and I spent the rest of my life just waiting for you to come back to me . . . It would be worse than anything. Because I know you, Sherlock. You’re clever enough to get out of anything. And I would believe that for a lot longer than six bloody months.”

“I didn’t want you to mourn me again,” Sherlock says. “You said yourself how devastating that was for you. And it isn’t just you now, it’s Mary and your child, too.”

“So you thought it’d be better to just lie?”

“I thought it would be better to leave you happy!” 

Sherlock’s outburst seems to stop John in his tracks. His mouth shuts with a click. Sherlock looks away, unable to make eye contact any longer.

Stupid, stupid. He’s given himself away now. As if the scene on the tarmac weren’t ridiculous enough. 

To Sherlock’s surprise, a hand settles on his shoulder and grips, warm but firm. “Sherlock,” John says. “Sherlock, look at me.” 

“I have a case to solve, John.”

“No, you don’t, because it’s not real. Look at me.” John’s hand tightens. He has somehow moved into Sherlock’s space without him noticing, standing between Sherlock’s knees, bent over his seat. Sherlock feels overwhelmed with John towering over him, the flaps of his jacket brushing against Sherlock’s shoulders, his warmth and scent abruptly surrounding him. His senses feel a hundred times more sensitive in his state; he can barely stop himself from wrapping his arms around John’s waist and burying his face in the man’s chest. With great effort, he does as John asks, dragging his gaze upward to meet John’s.

John is so close now. His blue eyes, wide and expressive, are mere inches away. The light from the window highlights his soft gold eyelashes and softens the lines of his boyish face. His tongue flicks out to lick his bottom lip, the old unconscious habit, and Sherlock finds his attention drawn to John’s mouth with something not unlike hysteria clenching in his gut. 

“I knew that whole ‘Sherlock is a girl’s name’ bit was rubbish,” John says after a moment. He doesn’t wait for a response before he ducks his head and presses a kiss to Sherlock’s mouth.

Although it’s barely a second long, Sherlock’s world immediately narrows down to that small point of contact. He tries to categorize everything—the dry warmth of John’s lips, the soft press of John’s upturned nose into his cheek, the way John’s breath hitches almost imperceptibly at the touch. He immediately decides it isn’t enough, that no amount of John’s mouth against his will ever be enough.

When John tries to pull away, Sherlock grasps the lapels of his jacket and drags him back down. He kisses back, too hard, lips crushed against John’s and his breath coming in short gasps. John, surprisingly, does not retreat. His hand slides from Sherlock’s shoulder to his neck; his thumb strokes a sliver of exposed skin over his collar and his fingers grasp loosely at the curls of hair they can reach. Sherlock’s head spin with the heady closeness and his heart races, beating a rapid rhythm against his ribs.

After a long moment, John breaks away. He rests his forehead against Sherlock’s, smiling as though he can’t help it. “Jesus,” he murmurs. “Should have done that ages ago.” Sherlock hums his assent, already trying to tilt his head up for more. 

A rattling noise at the end of the cabin startles them both: the sound of footsteps, two pairs, one after the other, ascending the stairs up to the plane. John swears.

_“Holmes, we can’t let them see us like this.”_

Sherlock blinks, shakes his head. John has backed away, putting space between them both. “What did you say?” he asks, looking back up at John. His vision is swimming. His heart is still racing, beating harder than it should be now.

John looks back, brow knitting with concern. “I didn’t say anything.”

“No, you did, you said—“ Sherlock cuts himself off as his head The plane cabin is suddenly replaced with the drab colors of a Victorian sitting room. He looks up into the worried visage of not John, but Dr. Watson.

“Sherlock, what’s wrong?”

_“Holmes?”_

Sherlock shakes his head, but it doesn’t shake away the visions. Mary and Mycroft appear in the doorway to the cabin. They both start speaking, but their words are incomprehensible. 

_Can’t let them know Watson and I kissed_ , Sherlock thinks deliriously. Of course not. Capital sin. They would both be hanged on the spot . . .

“Sherlock!”

_“Holmes!”_

Blackness edges in on his vision, then takes over all at once. The last thing Sherlock feels before giving himself over to unconsciousness is John’s—Watson’s?—hands, searching for a pulse and holding him upright. He smiles.


End file.
